A statistical and practical policy-oriented procedure for supporting or not supporting the use of student evaluations for faculty promotion decisions is described. The procedure is based on measures of teaching excellence. A comprehensive General Systems Theory type of flow diagram cross-classifies and causally relates all the relevant variables. Sources of invalidity for evaluation instruments are listed. Meaningful differences between ordinal scale measures are discussed, along with the need for statistical controls of intervening and extraneous variables. Thirteen questions that must be addressed to promote the fair use of student evaluation data for personnel purposes are raised. In addition, guidelines for college and university personnel policy are provided. It is recommended that validity studies be based on pre- and post-measures of amount learned by the student, independent of course examinations. The studies must control for all potentially significant intervening variables. Included are bibliographies on: the evaluation of teaching, alternate teaching approaches and problems in higher education, student evaluation of instruction and its validity, and legal aspects. (Author/SW)

Note: Paper presented at the Conference on Postsecondary Education sponsored by the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the American Educational Research Association Division J (San Francisco, CA, October 28-30, 1984).